News Archive

I would also like to congratulate and appreciate the National Assembly of Lao PDR for hosting this important partnership meeting among legislators from the tow regions. Disaster risk reduction including social participation is topical in both Asia and Europe as the two regions occupy positions one and three on the list of economic losses from disaster impacts.

Japanese school children have asked the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, to make sure that children's views are taken into account in the consultations on a new framework agreement on disaster risk reduction to succeed the Hyogo Framework for Action.

The Mayor of Mashad, Seyed Mohammad Pezhman, is leading a major push for more Iranian cities to join UNISDR's "Making Cities Resilient" campaign as ten cities from disaster-prone Khorasan Razavi Province in north-eastern Iran signed up to the campaign yesterday.

The largest UN summit ever organized closes today with an urgent worldwide call for accelerated implementation of the international blueprint for disaster risk reduction agreed by all UN member States seven years ago.

GIVING BACK TO JAPAN 2: Community Leaders Report is now available for viewing! Mayors from five cities in Japan discuss community rebuilding in the tsunami and earthquake-hit Tohoku region in Japan. Listen to their suggestions on how individuals and organizations can help their communities, on the TPF2 website at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22746125.

This Saturday, from drought-stricken Mongolia to Himalayan communities threatened by glacial melt, Climatedots.org will bring people together to hold rallies and remind everyone of the extreme weather events that are happening in their communities because of climate change.

At the start of a week-long trip to Cambodia, the UN's senior official for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlström, met yesterday with a 64-year-old grandmother who saved the lives of her five grandchildren during last year's heavy monsoon rains.

A visit to a disaster-resilient habitat in Bangladesh has prompted UNISDR Chief Margareta Wahlström to acknowledge the south Asian country as leading developing nations in the global fight against climate change impacts.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today paid tribute to the resilience of the Japanese people as they prepare to mark the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction which the Japanese government is proposing to host in 2015.

The Head of the UN's Disaster Risk Reduction Office, UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, today congratulated three Philippines Senators for leading an in-depth, two-day post-mortem with local leaders into the devastating losses caused to Mindanao island by Typhoon Sendong in December.

A new briefing paper from Oxfam identifies "the limited investment in building resilience and disaster risk reduction (DRR), despite rhetoric to the contrary" as one of main failures of humanitarian aid in recent times.

An insightful new report on the 2010 Haiti earthquake offers a scathing critique of an international community which "has much to learn from the response in Haiti where it has shown an ability to repeat its errors and shortcomings from past disasters."

In Tyrol, Austria, a poster showing a green valley with snow-capped mountains in the distance greeted delegates to a conference on climate change – a beautiful summer scene which hides a potential nightmare scenario for winter tourism in the alps.

The League of Arab States (LAS) and UNISDR move one step closer to a plan of action on disaster risk reduction for the Arab region. The action plan is expected to be endorsed at the first-ever Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Arab region planned for 2012.

Four student representatives from Kobe University, Bukkyo University and Tohuku University announced a ‘Youth Declaration’ during United Nations Day celebrations in Sendai City to highlight the commitment and active participation of youth in building disaster resilient communities.

Recognizing the importance of risk reduction, the Japanese city of Saijo expanded their disaster risk reduction (DRR) education program to train children and young people to be future leaders in DRR. The program, which now trains students older than twelve-years old, was launched as part of the International Day for Disaster Reduction celebrations in the city.

The UN office for disaster risk reduction, UNISDR, today marked International Disaster Reduction Day with a call for children and young people to be empowered and engaged in disaster risk reduction as the group most affected by disasters each year.

The UNISDR Sub-Regional Office in Suva together with its partners, held a Pacific regional celebration of the International Day for Disaster Reduction to highlight the role of children and youth as active partners in disaster risk reduction.

Every morning from 17-24 September, Kobe University student Erick Gonzales picks up his badge, his assignment and tools for the day, and is transported inside the coastal city of Ofunato to help the city clean up and recover from the damage caused by the 11 March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

When the annual monsoon rains come, 14-year-old Atik worries. As the deputy chief of the children’s council in her home village of Dowan, in Indonesia’s Central Java province she knows,” When it rains heavily for hours, it seems that soil in some parts of this village will shift and cause a landslide.”

Under the slogan ‘Step Up for Disaster Risk Reduction’, UNISDR and the coalition Children in a Changing Climate - PLAN International, Save the Children, UNICEF and World Vision - will focus on children and young people on the International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR) on 13 October.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene that hit the east coast of the United States just over a week ago, it is a reminder that disasters caused by extreme weather events are becoming common place even for countries and cities that are considered to be at the pinnacle of development.

Today marked National Disaster Reduction day in Japan, an annual event which commemorates the Great Kanto Earthquake which devastated Tokyo and surrounding areas in 1923. This year’s event, however, is particularly poignant, being the first since the 11 March Great East Japan Earthquake.

More than 200 participants, including 38 parliamentarians, mayors and vice mayors, from 33 countries adopted the Chengdu Declaration of Action, a five-point strategy to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing cities today.

The rallying call of the UNISDR led ‘Making cities resilient campaign’ to city authorities to build resilient, sustainable urban communities to reduce disaster risks, has just added the East African cities of Bujumbura in Burundi, as well Arusha and Moshi in the Republic of Tanzania to its ever expanding list...